Link in the chain - February

It’s reveal day at Card Chain Challenge. Mine went to the lovely Gail in Norway this time. Once I saw that one of the themes was polar bears and my mind went to this stamp (which probably hasn’t seen ink for the best part of a decade) I couldn’t seem to work in any of the other options. Never mind, one is all it takes to play!

The bears are stamped on grey paper and coloured with pencils - I think I succeeded in making the edges of the image disappear somewhat (the lines of the water stop rather abruptly). There’s a touch of sparkle on the water courtesy of Wink of Stella and an eclipse sentiment and that’s about it. 

I’ve just (re)listened to the Philip Pullman Northern Lights trilogy on Audible so of course I was imagining these bears donning their armour as I made the card! Would have been totally appropriate for its destination since they’re Svalbard bears but I’m not sure I’m up to drawing armour made of sky iron so they remained unclad (apologies if that whole paragraph meant nothing to you!).

Stamps:
Polar Bear Pair (Cornish Heritage Farms, no longer with us)

Paper:
Bristol board
Strathmore Toned Grey

Ink:
Hero Arts shadow ink by Ranger (Soft Granite)

Other:
Spellbinder Phrases 1 dies
Coloured pencils
Stitched rectangle dies, A6 size (Paper Rose)
Clear Wink of Stella pen

There are still a few days to sign up for the next chain if you fancy it - make and send one card, get a card from the next person in the chain. Details here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tic tac toe on the ocean

I’m delighted to be guest designing for the current challenge at Retro Rubber. It’s one of their tic tac toe challenges this time, I always enjoy playing these. I picked the middle row: neutrals-the ocean-colouring with inks, markers or pencils. 

The shells are from a Hero Arts set that is one of my all time favourites. Sadly, I believe it’s retired now. I stamped and masked the two larger shells on toned grey paper and stamped the smaller shell separately so that I could pop it up slightly with some gel glue. I used several shades of grey and a white pencil to colour the images, masked them and sponged ink over a die cut for the net effect. The sentiment is from another favourite old set by Crafty Secrets. 

The "light through water" effect at the top is a stencil -  just ink lightly over it once and then shift it slightly and do it again.

Stamps:
Antique Engravings (Hero Arts, I’ve had mine since about 2013)
Sentiment from Seaside (Crafty Secrets, no longer with us, I’ve had mine since 2008)

Paper:
Bristol board
Strathmore Toned Grey

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate)
Hero Arts shadow ink by Ranger (Soft Granite)

Other:
Pearl pen by Viva Decor (Ice White)
Coloured pencils
Stitched rectangle dies, A6 size (Paper Rose)
Netting  die cut (Marianne Designs)
Fibres stencil (Visible Image)

Thanks for stopping by!

Fairy tales

Rizwana has set the challenge for us over at Daring Cardmakers this week and as it’s National Tell a Fairy Tale day she’d like to see cards inspired by favourite fairy tales. 

I opted for something a little more generic but I think dragons definitely count as fairy tale! I bought the dragon stamps many years ago (when it was still Elusive Image, not Chocolate Baroque) but I think this is the first time this one has seen ink. I’m still enjoying delving quite deliberately into older supplies - apart from the dragon, the little reader made his first appearance on this blog in 2008!

My Copics haven’t had a workout for a while so I coloured the images with those. I thought doing the dragon in shades of grey might make him look as if he’s emerging from the imagination of the little reader.  I stamped the reader first, masked him and stamped the dragon in the background with grey ink. 

Stamps:
Story of Me  (Crafty Secrets, no longer with us)
Here Be Dragons (Chocolate Baroque)
Storybook (Cornish Heritage Farms, no longer with us)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Hero Arts shadow ink (Soft Granite, Charcoal)

Other:
Copic markers
Corner Chomper 
White paint pen by Posca

See which fairy tales my teamies were inspired by here! Thanks for stopping by. 

Kiss kiss

It's my turn to set the challenge over at Daring Cardmakers this week and as today is Kissing Friday I'd like to see cards with a kiss. Apparently on the Friday of Shrove Week, English schoolboys were once entitled to kiss the girls without being punished or rejected. More about the tradition here.

There are extra brownie points on offer to K.I.S.S. and make a clean and simple card and as I can always use extra brownie points I've gone that way.

This also fits the current challenge over at Let’s Squash It - use a love themed folder and red/pink.

We’d love to see you at one or other of the challenges (or both!) - Daring Cardmakers runs for a week, Let’s Squash It to the end of the month. 

Stamps:
Face It (Visible Image)
Say It Loud (Waltzingmouse Stamps, no longer with us)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Picked Raspberry)
Hero Arts Shadow ink (Soft Granite)
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)

Other:
Love Hearts embossing folder by Crafts Too
Scor It
Corner Chomper

Hope you are staying safe and well. Thanks for stopping by.

Share the love

It's Dawn's turn to set the challenge over at Daring Cardmakers this week and she'd like to see some love. It could be a Valentine or it could be a card just to say you care - things are difficult for so many of us at the moment that spreading a little love would be a good idea.

I've gone for clean and simple with a slightly masculine vibe using just the card base and some masking and then mounting the word LOVE with a bit of gel glue for a tiny bit of dimension. The drop shadow is just a bit of Copic marker shading.

My colour scheme and stamp choice were inspired by the current Retro Rubber challenge (I've had the Hero Arts set since 2014, the CHF one even longer).

Day of the Month Card Club has a Valentine theme for the current challenge so I’m linking up there, too.

Stamps:
Untitled Hearts (Hero Arts, retired I believe)
Key Expressions (Cornish Heritage Farms, no longer with us)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Hero Arts Shadow Ink (Soft Granite, Charcoal)
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Memento Luxe by Tsukineko (Love Letter)

Other:
Copic markers (Cool Grey 1, 3 and 5)
Pinflair glue gel
Corner Chomper

Hope you are keeping safe and well, thanks for dropping by. 

Heartfelt

I’m delighted to be Guest Designer at Let’s Squash It for this month’s challenge where the focus is on love and romance. Pull out your embossing folders with hearts, Cupids, words of love etc and throw in some red and/or pink - all the details here!

I decided to try the “embedding” thing which is a trick I’ve failed to get round to until now. Basically, just stick die cut shapes on the piece you’re going to emboss, run the whole lot through the machine in the folder and the embossing process squishes the shapes into the base layer so it looks seamless. It works best if the folder has a fairly close “all over” kind of pattern and I thought these heartstrings would fit the bill. 

I’ve framed one of the embossed hearts and used a Tim Holtz arrow sticker to further draw attention to it. Die cut lettering finishes it off. 

Gail and Jo would love to see your romantic crushes (see what I did there?) so why not get your squash on during the month? There’s a prize for a random winner too!

Unusually for me there’s no stamping here so I’m linking up at Unstampabelle as well where the current challenge is an anything goes one. 

Supplies:

Hearts embossing folder (Crafts Too)

Bristol board, black, red and silver cardstock

Tim Holtz Industrial stickers

Fiskars circle punches

Small circle punch

Tim Holtz/Sizzix alphabet diesh

Fine frames circle die (Altenew)

Silver gel pen 

Pinflair glue gel

February elements

It’s the first Friday of the month so it must be an elemental challenge over at Daring Cardmakers - my turn to host and I’ve taken inspiration from the month to put together our inspiration photo.  Violet and amethyst are February’s flower and gemstone, it’s usually cold and wet so curling up with a book is a good option but thoughts are starting to turn to gardening or beach walks if you’re lucky enough to live close to one. 

As usual, choose at least three elements from the picture to kick start your project. I chose a shell, book text, amethyst colour gems and a “hello” sentiment. 

I stamped the shell on the book page (taken from a book that was too shabby to give to a charity shop when we did a cull recently), painted over with gesso then stamped again once dry and shaded with Copic markers. I did try a version without the gesso but the detail of the stamp didn’t work well with the text showing through. 

Stamps:
Coquillage #2 (Carabelle Studio)
Essential Messages (Hero Arts, retired)

Paper:
Bristol board
Old book page

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate)
Tim Holtz Distress Oxide by Ranger (Wilted Violet)

Other:
Copic markers
Gesso
Cressida stencil
Nail art gems

Here's the inspiration photo for February:

Thanks for stopping by, hope you are keepign safe and well.

Link in the chain - January

It’s reveal day over at Card Chain Challenge. Mine has gone over the Pond to Janis this time. 

I think I must be feeling nostalgic, I’ve decided to make a conscious effort to revisit some of my older supplies this year. This is one of the very first stamps I owned and was certainly in my first batch of stamps from the much missed Cornish Heritage Farms. The options I chose from this month’s CCC choices were flowers, the sketch, colour palette of kraft/blossom/gold and the product options of colouring and stencil. 

This did start life as a single layer on a kraft base but it looked a bit dull and I thought mounting it as a slightly smaller panel on a white base might give it a bit of a lift. I kept the circles subtle by brushing tone on tone ink through holes die cut in a piece of acetate and used coloured pencils on the kraft paper for the flowers in their jar. 

Stamps:
Daisy Jar (Cornish Heritage Farms, no longer with us)

Paper:
Bristol board
Kraft
Gold glitter card

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Antique Linen, Vintage Photo)

Other:
Coloured pencils
Home made stencil (acetate cut with various circle dies)
Hello die (Waltzingmouse Stamps, no longer with us) 
Stitched rectangle A6 size dies (Paper Rose)

There are still a few days to sign up for the next chain if you fancy making and sending a card and getting one from another of the lovely participants.

Whatever the weather

Our challenge over at Daring Cardmakers this week has been set by Svenja who would like us to focus on the weather.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking to be focusing on spring showers - we’ve had sleet, ice and a sprinkle of snow this week. My brother had about 7 inches of snow in his road last weekend! 

I’ve gone for an ink blended panel directly on my card base (edges masked off with low tack tape first), splattered with some water and dotted over with Glossy Accents for raindrops. I thought a sunny coloured flower would help to emphasise the thought behind the words. The die cuts are watercolour paper so I could add fairly loose colouring to them.

The stamp set that includes this sentiment is in my box of things that I’m considering letting go but I’m now thinking I might need to rescue it just for the sentiment which I think is lovely. 

Stamps:
Sentiment from Asian Gardens Additions (Waltzingmouse Stamps, no longer with us)

Paper:
Bristol board
Watercolour

Ink:
Tim Holtz Distress ink and Distress Oxide by Ranger (Tumbled Glass, Blueprint Sketch, Salty Ocean)

Other:
Wildflower Stems #1 (Tim Holtz/Sizzix)
Winsor and Newton watercolours
Glossy Accents by Ranger
White crochet thread

 

Square dance

Our challenge over at Daring Cardmakers this week is focusing on squares - Shabneez would like to see squares feature in any way in our cards. 

I opted for a small square card base, square image panel and hand painted some little square embellishments rather than adding sequins as I might have done - I think those are visible on the photo (I used white gold paint so they're pretty subtle!).

I tried something a bit different with an embossing folder this time and added watercolouring to the raised image. It was a bit fiddly but I think it’s a pretty effect and I found it quite a “mindful” process. Running it through the embossing folder does seem to change the properties of the paper a bit, I found the colour didn’t move quite as easily.

Stamps:
Sentiment from Say It All (Hero Arts, retired)

Paper:
Watercolour

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate)

Other:
Winsor & Newton watercolours
Silver gel pen 
Gansai Tambi starry colours (white gold used here)
Flower Frame embossing folder (Nellie Snellen)

Thanks for dropping by, hope you are keeping safe and well.